


The Lucky Sevens Detective Agency: Case of the Mysteriously Murdered Man

by wei



Category: Naruto
Genre: AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-14
Updated: 2010-03-14
Packaged: 2017-10-08 00:14:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/70726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wei/pseuds/wei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Team Seven investigates a murder at Kankuro's Puppet Emporium.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lucky Sevens Detective Agency: Case of the Mysteriously Murdered Man

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the AU meme at naruto_meme. Prompt: Team 7 detectives, cyberpunk style! Something in the mood of Blade Runner or the Penny Arcade universe of Automata.

The room was filled with people laughing and talking and eating. A man with purple markings on his face stood with a microphone in his hands to make an announcement.

"Thank-you all for celebrating the opening of Kankuro's Puppet Emporium with me. Enjoy the food, enjoy the music, and don't forget to check out our goods tomorrow."

While the party attendees were clapping, the lights suddenly turned off, plunging the room into darkness. Several screams ran out and ten seconds later, the lights turned on again, prompting even more horrified screams.

In the center of the room, one of the servers lay on the ground, a bloody wound in his chest.

\--  
Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke sat around a table in a messy kitchen over yet another dinner of frozen dumplings, if the overflowing wrappings from the trash bin were evidence.

Naruto finished chewing his last one, and then announced "I get to be lead investigator this time. So, motive, method, and murderer. Ideas?"

"Wait, why do you get to be lead? It's my turn" pointed out Sakura.

"I got stuck scanning the retinas of every single person in the room while you got the fun jobs. So I get to be lead" replied Naruto.

Sakura shrugged. "Fine, whatever. The victim was Midari, an employee of Kankuro's. He was hired a week ago to work in shipping and receiving. He didn't come with any references, and Kankuro doesn't know much about him, but he seemed normal enough, though pretty quiet. He doesn't show up on any database, official or unofficial. If I had to guess, either a competitor of Kankuro's wanted to scare him off or something from the man's past caught up with him.

"As far as the method, it looks like a knife wound through his heart killed him. I couldn't find anything that could have been the murder weapon, though. Apparently, Gaara gets "twitchy" when there are lethal weapons around and so there was a thorough security screening beforehand. Given his reputation, I'm not surprised no one bothered sneaking anything in, since a scan of everyone in the area didn't reveal any hidden weapons. The blackout was caused by a timer set to the fuse. There were no fingerprints on the timer and none of the cameras have worked for months. Apparently they were cannibalized for parts." She shared a look with Sasuke. Outside the central district it was a little too much to ask for even basic technology to stay in working order.

"Okay, Sasuke?" Naruto asked.

"No one in the room seemed to have heard or seen anything suspicious. I interviewed everyone who was standing within a 5 m range of the body. He tapped the datapad on the table to reveal a schematic with several dots surrounding an X labeled Midari. None of them heard, saw, or felt anything, which makes me guess it was one of them because given the short time and their positions, one of them would have noticed a killer slipping in." Sasuke tapped a dot to cause the datapad to project the heads of a man and woman in the air above it. "First we have Nara Temari, Kankuro's sister. She works as a tax accountant in the same company as her husband Shikamaru. She does show up as having weapons training, though nothing overly suspicious. The two of them invited Yamanaka Ino and Akimichi Choji, both childhood friends of Shikamaru." He closed the first two images and then pulled up the face of the next two people. "On the left is Choji, a chef, and on the right is Ino, your old college classmate. I didn't know she was a psychologist." He turned to Sakura. "She was also the only one with blood on her hands. I hope for your sake she isn't the murderer."

"I'm sure she's not. She was trying to save his life. The police don't care about crime in this part of town, especially if it involves a no-namer. No one would have bothered even investigating if Ino hadn't called me. Actually, I doubt it was any of those four. I've known Ino longer than I've known the two of you, and her friends are all pretty decent people."

Sasuke continued identifying the rest of the dots. "The next person is Kiba, Kankuro's junior partner." The image of a man appeared. "He's a no-namer and the only person with a criminal history, with several vandalism/loitering charges as a teenager. Still, given that he has a financial stake in seeing the emporium succeed and given that these crimes happened over ten years ago, I don't think he's likely to be our murderer. He invited his friends Aburame Shino, an engineer, and Hinata, who works in a sundry shop." Sasuke pulled up the last two faces. "Lastly, we have Sai, an artist friend of Kankuro," said Saskuke, while tapping a dot to reveal a pale skinned, black haired man.

"What do you think?" asked Naruto.

"To go purely on instinct, I suggest we check out Sai and Hinata, especially Hinata. They're both no-namers and…" Naruto cut Sasuke off.

"You're biased, do you know that?" accused Naruto.

"I am not."

"You are too!" insisted Naruto. "Just because someone is unregistered doesn't mean they're a criminal."

"You were naturalized," said Sauske.

"But I never would have qualified if Sakura hadn't argued for my case. They always assume that any time spend off the record is time spent doing illegal activities, never mind how difficult it is for unregistered people to find legitimate jobs or apply for credit or do anything that would create a qualified record." Naruto's volume increased with each sentence.

Sasuke started to respond. "Sometimes there are stereotypes for a reason. We have no idea what implants or abilities they may have - "

Sakura cut in when Naruto started to yell over Sasuke. "Argue a different time. It's late. Let's go check out the victim's place tomorrow morning and see if his landlord or neighbors know something, and I made an appointment to talk more to Kankuro in the evening."

"Fine. If we're done, I'm going to get ready to go to bed." Naruto left the room and went upstairs.

"You know Naruto's sensitive about prejudice towards unregistereds. You could have handled that better," chided Sakura.

"He was the one who used to announce he was 'Uzumaki Naruto' to everyone he met. I'm not the biased one. Look, something about Sai's facial expressions was off. When I activated my implant, I saw that he was missing the usual microexpressions and his responses were always delayed by a small amount. I'd say he was lying about something. Hinata was extremely nervous – her eyes darted around, she shifted her weight frequently, and she compulsively wrung out her hands. She was definitely anxious about something."

"Sasuke, I trust that you're being fair. But a lot of people who were born legally don't realize the prejudice against those less privileged."

"Naruto has a chip on his shoulder, but he forgets that he's not the only person who life dealt a bad hand to," retorted Sasuke. He and picked up the datapad and started up a program to crawl through the unofficial databases for information on Sai and Hinata and then quickly scanned over the transcript of their session. The datapad was usually accurate at transcribing audio based on the history of the words used before, but sometimes it got confused. "You Artoo?" Sasuke showed the datapad to Sakura.

She blushed. "It's a classic, okay!"

\--

The next morning, they went to Midari's home, and found nothing. He had moved in a couple weeks before, paid his deposit in cash and never talked to the other tenants. During lunch, the three of them ran through the results of the previous night's searches. Apparently, Sai was being treated for an emotional and behavioral disorder.

"Luckily, the health information privacy act doesn't apply to no-namers. He has a problem with empathy and nonverbal communication skills" summarized Sasuke.

"This would explain why he looked suspicious to you, and the extraordinary number of paintings he puts up in galleries. Seriously, he'd have to shut himself up in his studio all the time to account for all of them," said Sakura.

"See, Sasuke. You're not always right. What about Hinata?" asked Naruto.

"I reran the search myself this morning, but nothing shows up on her. She's like Midari, actually. Her retinal pattern isn't associated with anything in any official or unofficial database, though the scan did reveal scar tissue characteristic of surgery often associated with people trying to hide their identity," answered Sakura. Naruto looked disappointed. "She doesn't even show up in the public library, and in this district, the only people who don't use the library are on the run. Sasuke was right about checking her out."

"You know, I've never actually stepped foot in a public library," Sasuke smirked.

Naruto glared. "Shut up. Not everyone's rich enough to afford a datapad and private network connection."

\--

After lunch, they pulled up to a small store. Sakura opened the door and heard a synthetic bell chime.

"Hello, can I help you?" said a voice from the register. Hinata froze when she saw the three of them.

"Can we ask you some questions?" asked Naruto.

She nodded and walked over and flipped a switch on the wall to lock the door and change the sign to "closed." "Do you mind if we go in the back?" she asked.

"Of course that's fine." Naruto gave her an encouraging smile.

She unlocked a door labeled "Do not enter" and brought the three of them into a small living room.  
Hinata set cushions around a low coffee table and gestured for them to sit down. "Do you want something to drink? Or eat?"

Naruto replied, "Sure! Hey, I'll help you." He followed her through a door into the kitchen.

Sasuke said quietly, "Something about her bothers me, though I'm not sure what it is."

When Hinata and Naruto returned, Sasuke started started questioning her again about the previous day's events. "Tell me again why you were at the party," "Had you met the deceased before," "What do you know about Kankuro's business," and "Recite the events at the party in reverse order."

Hinata repeated her answers the night before, saying she didn't know anything, and after the last question from Sasuke, Sakura decided to take pity on her and move the questions along to her background.

"So how long have you worked here?" asked Sakura.

"About eight years," Hinata answered.

"What did you do before that?"

"Nothing much." Hinata looked increasingly uncomfortable. She fisted her hands when she realized she was twisting her fingers.

"Nothing?" Sakura prompted.

She shook her head. All the questions went like this.

Eventually, Hinata lost patience. "How is any of this relevant?" she asked.

"Your background is… suspicious. We're just trying to get a better handle on you," Sakura explained.

Hinata was silent for a few moments and then took a deep breath. "I didn't do anything, and I didn't see anything. I know I don't have any rights here, but neither do you, and I'd like it if you could leave now so I can reopen my shop."

"Okay. We'll be back if we find anything." Sakura got up and opened the door leading back to the store.

Naruto apologized "I'm sorry if my friends came off kind of harsh. We really need some leads on this case."

Sakura came back into the room. "It's misty out."

Sasuke looked grim and checked his sides for his weapons. "We should be fine." Naruto and Sakura nodded in agreement.

"Wait. You can wait it out here, if you need to." Hinata said in a quiet voice, looking down. "No one will come by until the mist is gone."

"Thanks Hinata!" Naruto looked at the register and the jar of coins by it and had a flash of inspiration. "Hey, do you have extra rolls of coins somewhere?"

Hinata nodded. Naruto grabbed a pack of cards off a hanging rack and gave her a couple of bills. "For the cards and change in coins. You're not busy, right?"

Hinata shook her head, too confused to talk.

"Okay, you get the coins, and I'll set up in the living room." Naruto shooed her off when she hesitated.

Forty five minutes later, the four of them were in the middle of a poker game.

"Sakura! You've been stealing my chips. I knew I couldn't be in last place," shouted Naruto.

Sakura laughed. "Hey, it's your own fault if you got too reliant on chip counters to play the old fashioned way."

Naruto looked at each player's stacks of coins. "Hey Hinata, you're actually pretty good," he said after seeing her neatly stacked columns of coins.

Predictably, Hinata blushed and looked down. "I think Sasuke's still won more than I have," she demurred.

"Eh, Sasuke used to be a dealer, so you shouldn't feel too bad." When Hinata looked up in surprise, Naruto continued. "Yeah, actually we all met two years ago at a casino. That's how we came up with our name, 'The Lucky Sevens Detective Agency'"

"You came up with that name. I still think it sounds like a Chinese grocery store," Sakura corrected. "I was working as a part time security officer to pay for college, and Naruto …"

Naruto interrupted her with "Was a big shot high roller who won the games based on pure skill."

"Was a noisy kid who I kept on needing to escort out in fear of him bankrupting the place with his crazy luck," Sakura finished. "He won a ridiculous bet against Sasuke and I and dragged us along when he decided to start a detective agency."

"Anyway, the fact that you're beating me means you've got some kind of crazy skill too. It's almost as if you can see what cards I'm holding." At Naruto's statement, Hinata's eyes widened in fear.

I'm an idiot, realized Sasuke. He looked directly at her and said "What were you thinking when you kept your name? Given how snobbish your family is, I can't picture them associating with anyone who would be in this district, so perhaps it wasn't as reckless as it appears, but still."

"I, I don't know what you're talking about." Hinata was panicking.

"If I promise not to tell your family, will you tell us what you saw?" asked Sasuke. Hinata's eyes widened, and he felt like he was ten again and they were commiserating over how horrible their families (though never their siblings) made them feel. It was so obvious now.

"My mother named me," she said quietly. "It was her hope for me." Hinata looked up and said more confidently, "I was telling the truth, though. I didn't see anything."

"So there was no knifeman," Sasuke prompted.

Hinata shook her head. "No knifeman and no knife. When the lights blacked out, I activated my implant. No one touched the man, but blood spurted out of his chest and then he fell down. The only one carrying in a 10 m radius was Temari, and she had a laser pointer and those cauterize when they hit. Shino was standing in the path a projectile would have taken given the angle of the wound, and besides, there was no impact. Something hitting his chest should have pushed him backwards, but he just fell down."

Sasuke nodded, as if it confirmed what he already suspected. "We'll be going now." He walked towards the door, pausing to let Sakura and Naruto catch up.

"I heard about your family. I'm sorry" said Hinata.

"So am I." The three of them walked off into the clear night.

When they were out of eyeshot, Naruto shoved Sasuke against a dingy storefront. "We let you have your dramatic exit – you owe us answers now."

Sasuke started to explain. "It was a set-up. Midari wasn't a real person, he was one of Kankuro's fancy dolls. That's why we couldn't find any info on him."

"Not about that. About Hinata!" interrupted Naruto.

Sasuke sighed. Some professional you are. He replied, "About ten years ago, Hyuga Hinata died in a house fire. Except apparently, she didn't.

"So she was nervous about being recognized?" asked Sakura.

"I guess. Our families interacted from time to time, and I really should have realized who she was earlier. That's what was bothering me about her."

"That's what you get for repressing your past so much" teased Sakura.

Sasuke glared at her. "Shut up."

\--

Naruto strode through the doors of Kankuro's office, Sakura and Sasuke in tow. "Here's your bill for our services."

"Transportation, food, and poker expenses? Even ignoring the obvious question, I thought you said you'd investigate for free," said Kankuro.

"That was before we realized you staged everything," responded Naruto.

"What makes you say that?"

"The murdered guy? Was just a publicity stunt, wasn't it. To show how realistic your dolls could be," answered Naruto.

"They're puppets, not dolls," corrected Kankuro. "And yes, you caught me. Not my fault the big shots in the central district don't believe anything you say if you don't have a bunch of letters after your name. I'm kind of disappointed you caught on so soon."

"We're just really good" replied Sakura. The three of them turned to leave.

"Oh, Sasuke?" called out Kankuro. Sasuke turned around. "I heard you were looking for information about your brother?"

"What do you know?" asked Sasuke.

"I could tell you how to find an old competitor of mine that's part of his organization" answered Kankuro.

"And in exchange?"

"You could spread the word about my amazing puppets to certain people," responded Kankuro.

"Fine. If your information checks out."

"I'll send you a message with the information later tonight. Nice doing business with you" said Kankuro.

When the datapad chimed, Sasuke dove for it and went up into his bedroom. He monopolized it for the next hour.

"Sasuke, are you done yet?" called Sakura from the living room.

"Yeah, quit hogging it. My show's coming up" shouted Naruto.

When he didn't respond, the two of them went upstairs. "You want to tell us what Kankuro sent us?" asked Sakura

"Not really," replied Sasuke.

"Fine." Sakura turned to Naruto. "I'm going to bring over a cake to thank Hinata for giving us the tip. Want to come with me? We can pump her for embarrassing stories about Sasuke when he was a kid."

"All right!"

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Wrench in the Works (The Upgraded Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/294338) by [hungrytiger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hungrytiger/pseuds/hungrytiger)




End file.
